Act 4 Normal Sucks and Is Way Too Hard

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Muzozavr wrote:

2. Daresso's Dream mini-pit cages are bullshit because not having room to move is no fun at all. And dying on Barkhul's cage forces you to respawn IN THE MIDDLE of the mob. LOLWTF, spawn me in front of the door, please.

Yes, I found that just complete bullshit. It's like they force you to make a tank build or uber DPS cast on crit or something just so you can survive being surrounded by 30 things at once. Do that for an optional map, sure, BUT NOT A PROGRESSION AREA!

I had to get spell echo chain flame sentinels for my summoner to get through it. Only to have Daresso mow down all my minions in a couple seconds. They just got through killing Dominus and not a single one died. They even toke hits from Voll. Why does a super fast boss you can't ever outrun period have such huge spike damage.

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MoLoK13 wrote:

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Arrowneous wrote:

So in about 546 hours we should be able to get a build to level 100, retire it, and move on to another class and work it to level 100 and not quit.

I don't get why you would assume that at all. Why is leveling to 100 supposed to be an attainable goal for most players, anyway??

My other biggest ARPG time sink has been Diablo 2, where it was functionally impossible to get to 100.

The devs logic is that making 100 should be exceptionally hard, so that it's still impressive when someone makes it there. This is not being met currently because of the super-serious players out there, but the solution isn't to make 100 more accessible... It's to make it less accessible!

(Particularly I'd like to see a bigger, indirect nerf to party play, as sharing maps seems to be a big part of how players get high leveled so quickly, but thats another thread entirely)

I usually count my builds "done" about 85 because that's where I typically stop playing them.

Most arpg's have a clearly defined end and then an endgame. Since GGG has neither here in PoE then the goal is a level 100 build. We have known forever that after killing Merciless Dominus and now with act 4 Merciless Malachai that there is no clear ending to PoE. So we keep playing a build past level 68 with the hope of one day grinding to level 100.

Once we have a sustainable solid build past Merciless Malachai the only thing left for that build is maybe some better gear and level 100. That's it. So since the Challenges are not really the endgame then all we have left is the level 100 goal. For GGG to move the end goal farther away so that the merry-go-round of grinding maps for xp to level up now requires a 49 1/2 ft. pole to grab the brass ring and retire a build is wrong thinking. GGG better add more endgame goals (special missions for items that can assembled at a crafting table for unique quest only gear or awarded special maps... like the famous mad cow level of yesteryear D2) to make wanting to play beyond Merciless Act 4 desirable. GGG is taking (has taken) away the level 100 build for most so now the reason we want to keep playing is mostly removed. Playing a gazillion new builds and experimenting with new skill combos is always fun but even that loses it's desire eventually.

Yes, yes, I know, every game be it an arpg or not has a cessation of play at some point in time. For GGG to extend that all the way to 10 years or more with a new act every 1.25 to 1.5 years is great but by just doubling down on the amount of xp (the other Wilson got replaced with that line of thinking in D3... and of course blowing up and swearing to D3 fans didn't help either) needed to reach level 100 is not going to sit well with millions of time limited (but loyal) players. Maybe that's why the daily player numbers are so low.

And another yes, yes, you can all say PoE is free-to-play so what's to be unhappy about and I can quit anytime I choose but I really don't think GGG should ever want to lose that many long time (but never elite time unlimited) players and our revenue stream.

Just adding millions more xp on the road to level 100 is making me feel like 12 years a PoE slave.

GGG, let the exile do his/her time in Wraeclast prison (reach level 100) and then be freed to go back to their former life in Theopolis (or wherever they came from after being convicted and sentenced here as punishment).

BTW: I love all the PoE back story I can get so keep that going forever GGG. Great reading.

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Arrowneous wrote:

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Wispo wrote:

The goal was very probably to please the cry baby masochistic supporters with 500 stash tabs of mirrored gear and thousand dollars spent in supporter packs. In one word... to please the 2% of the playerbase (the only player base ggg cares of)

The ladder elites do get the lions share of the special treatment by Chris. He was probably instrumental in getting the map and xp changes recently that made the grind to a level 100 build even more exponentially harder than before, all on account of a handful of elite players that can play fanatically non-stop from the start of a league all the way to 100 in a month or two. Chris and company is dead set against level 100 builds as they have the perverted and wrong assumption that if we get a build to level 100 that we will say "game over" and quit.

I fail to see why GGG thinks that a level 100 build equals quitting PoE. I see it completely the other way. If I could get to level 100 in a reasonable amount of time and that is 3 (hrs/day) x 7 x 26 (6 months) = 546 hours. So in about 546 hours we should be able to get a build to level 100, retire it, and move on to another class and work it to level 100 and not quit. Oh right, the no-lifers time-unlimited elite players (aka top of the ladder) will play 18 hours a day to get 546 hours in 30.33 days. This is a totally reasonable expectation of the time grind to reach level 100. Anyone saying that 1000 or 2000 hours is necessary is either time unlimited and/or a masochist player. The rest of us should not be punished and pushed out by their extreme time grind desires. Nor should GGG push PoE to that extreme time grind requirements to reach level 100 just to satisfy a few.

I agree, it's strange to consider a lvl 100 a quit

The special treatment for elite supporters was a thing suspected by me from long time.

But i suspect another special treatments for the heavy money giving supporters.... it's only a suspect, and now i explain why i have it

In the past i had an incinerate build, exile after deleted in a rage quit. I was copying EXACTLY a guide (obviously i will NOT do the name...). Same +87% spell damage on wand, same lvl 19 gems, same +fire/spell/elemental damage nodes, same number of links and gem setup, same auras, same "no uniques build" like him, same tree... same ALL. The only differences was that i was 10 levels below, but i wanted DAMAGE at that time, so i leaved the LIFE nodes to take for last (=the damage should have been EQUAL between us, with the difference of life pool, mine inferior due to 10 levels less)

MY incinerate: 5k dps
HIS incinerate: 20k dps

ME: normal gamer, NEVER given a cent to ggg
HIM: super uber mega alpha beta gamma delta omega supporter

The doubt, even with all possible clear mind in the world, ARISES....

edit: corrected english errors

Agreed. This game is way too hard now. It is hard enough to the point that it greatly restricts the type of character you can make. POE was supposed to be about choice. You could make a strange/fun build and it would work and be fun to play. Now, in order to move ahead, you are basically restricted to a very narrow set of workable, cookie cutter, builds.

GGG has basically killed their own game by ramping up the difficulty far beyond what is reasonable.

Necro'ing this one because it really needs to be addressed.

Act 4 boss design is utter garbage. It's not even a case of mistakes being made, it's just poor design all around. Marginalising players by over-zealously tuning encounters isn't going to save the game by any stretch of the imagination, and the fear that seems to drive the design decisions here are entirely misplaced.

Intentionally over-tuning bosses to somehow gate players, making it quite obvious that the bosses are over-tuned when compared to standard content, is perhaps the most ignorant and damaging way you could develop a game like this. Diablo 3 paid the price for its folly in this regard, and Path of Exile is not immune to that bad blood just because it's made by a little indie in New Zealand. And this coming from a player who cleared Inferno pre-nerf.

Act 4 bosses on normal need dramatic nerfs, Act 4 bosses on cruel need to be tuned down. And in the future, position mechanics needs to be used in such a way that allows for... well... positioning, as opposed to what we have currently where there aren't really any positions to respond to the positioning prompts because every positions you can possibly take in the boss room kills you. That alone is much more likely to kill the game than anything else, as even though you beat the encounters you just feel like it's a bit of a cheat when you've died 15 times to do it. I don't feel like I won; I feel like the boss won, but the game compensated for the shitty balance and utterly abysmal encounter design by letting me have endless near-boss re-spawns.

Act 4 isn't too hard it's just perfect, act 1-2 and maybe even act 3 cruel are too easy
same on merciless

I agree that they are overtuned but how we do in HC ? we can't respawn 15 times.. So we build around and we put defences on the passive tree and we have to ask what resist are mandatory etc...
But these fights are always stressfull and they are not fun for me etheir...

A4 is not hard. If someone got problems there is quick guide:

Aqueduct
- skip boss, farm here If you got problems in higher zones

town:
- buy best flasks you can, roll them to instant heal, get 1 antibleed flask

dired lake:
- watch out for sub boss (Nightwane), skip him.
- big monster that throw spears can inflict bleed.
- watch youtube video: how to kill Voll

mines:
- get phys mitigation: armour, enduring cry, decoy totem, get movement skill (use them in entire act 4)

kaom:
- get fire ressists, skip rare Rakango
- watch youtube video: how to kill Kaom

daress:
- get cold ressist
- watch youtube video: how to kill Daresso

belly of the beast
- check if you till got anti-bleeed flask
- skip boss: The Bone Queen
- Monsters with big red arm can inflict bleed.
- watch youtube video: how to kill Piety act 4

harvest
- buy best flasks that yo ucan use and roll instant heal on them
- watch youtube video: how to kill malachai

The idea that Act 4 normal is perfect is nominally insane. Act 4 standard mobs are fine, and most of the rares are well balanced (including the 3 pre-Malachai kills (just right, frankly)), but every single boss fight is over-tuned by a HUGE margin. The problem isn't so prominent in Cruel or Merciless, because that's where you should be expected to deal with such headaches, but Cruel is still a little bit of a step up on where it should be given a smooth balance curve. That's the biggest problem, I think; there's no curve with A4 normal. Bosses seem out of place difficulty wise, and they threw so many mechanics into the mix far too quickly.

And given the consistent server issues that GGG know plague players at the best of times, widely reported on the forums, on reddit, in game, etc, why they built encounters around fast reaction times and very specific movement is well beyond me.

It's a shame really because the ideas behind the encounters are sound but the implementation is far from sound.

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__Z__ wrote:

I agree that they are overtuned but how we do in HC ? we can't respawn 15 times.. So we build around and we put defences on the passive tree and we have to ask what resist are mandatory etc...
But these fights are always stressfull and they are not fun for me etheir...

That's why I stopped playing HC PoE a long time ago. Whilst GGG build around the philosophy they have currently, HC is a needless headache especially when you're talking about some of the boss fights (mostly A4). Add that to the patchy network infrastructure that GGG, and HC just becomes the masochistic affair that I cannot abide. The idea that you need to spec your toon to compensate for poor encounter design should never be at the forefront of your mind, but with A4 boss encounters it very much is. I'm all for reactive builds that compensate for boss mechanics, but compensating for poor development isn't a feature; it's a bug. So I can't empathise, but to suggest that the methodology applied to HC - an inherently elitist bracket - should apply to normal - which is supposed to be the casual/entry level - is nonsense, and is certain to drive players away from the game.

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kamil1210 wrote:

A4 is not hard.

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skip boss

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skip him

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skip rare Rakango

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skip boss: The Bone Queen